In the navigation of a ship, a time of arrival at a destination and an amount of fuel consumed are affected mainly by selection of a navigation route and selection of a number of rotations (simply referred to as “rotation speed” in the present application) of a propeller per unit time at each point during navigation. Accordingly, the shipping manager, ship operator or the like of a ship requires a technology by which a ship arrives at a destination at a desired time, and selection of navigation route or number of rotations of the propeller for minimizing fuel consumption is supported.
As an example of a technology that meets the needs of the foregoing requirement, JP2013-107488A suggests a technique in which a navigation route having the lowest fuel consumption is automatically calculated as the optimum navigation route on the basis of the marine weather around the time of ship navigation and individual ship performance data that indicates individual ship performance; namely, smooth underwater performance, in-ocean-wave performance and in-wind performance of a ship.